


Are you alright?

by johnwatsonswindmachine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:31:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnwatsonswindmachine/pseuds/johnwatsonswindmachine





	Are you alright?

John sits in his armchair in 221B, staring at the floor. His mind is a single note of frozen grief.

His phone buzzes on the end table, and he reaches for it without thinking. Pure habit. It's Harry. "Heard about Sherlock," it reads. "Are you alright?"

_Are you alright?_

John's thoughts flash back to an empty swimming pool, lights pale blue and flickering with the subtle lapping of water. Back to lives offered up without a second thought, to singsong retorts that still chill him, to heavy semtex coats. Sherlock scrubbing his hand through his hair, gun forgotten in their brief reprieve, and John had thought it would be just his luck if the bloody idiot blew his brilliant head off now, after all that.

John looks at the text again, glowing bright on the screen of his phone. The phone. The phone that told Sherlock so much about John with just a glance. And he goes back to that cab ride, their first, the first time Sherlock had talked him through a deduction, laid it out like it was so plain, so obvious, that anyone could see. Back to the first time John said it was fantastic, and Sherlock's barely concealed shock and confusion, like kindness was something that happened to other people.

The text still glows in the dim of the flat. "Are you alright?" And John feels angry, irrationally angry, at Harry's choice of words. Because those words, he realizes, that phrase, belongs to him and Sherlock. He wants to fling the phone across the flat; he wants to clutch it to him, a keepsake of better yesterdays. Instead, he sets in down on the table, closes his eyes, and sighs heavily. In that moment, John resolves to never respond to the phrase again. 

He keeps the promise for three years, until the moment Sherlock stands before him again, gaunt and pale with haunted eyes John has seen in his own reflection so many times. John sways on his feet, feels his brain tumble forward on itself, and is surprised when his body doesn't follow.

"Are you alright?"

And for the first time in years, the right person asks. It's the key in an old, rusted lock, and it grates in John's voice as the lock opens and he answers.

"Yes."


End file.
